Texas Governor ready to send National Guard to Northeast

Governor Rick Perry will send Texas National Guard to help hurricane victims on the East Coast, a spokesman for the governor told my office today.

Perry is just waiting for a request.

If it comes, the spokesman said, the governor will order the guard to fulfill it. Meanwhile, he said the Texas division of Emergency Management is monitoring requests from the Northeast for help.

In a follow up call to the Texas National Guard, a spokesperson said the Guard is ready to “support hurricane relief efforts” on the East Coast.

I wasn’t surprised. We don’t stand down in Texas when we need to stand up for ourselves or others. “One riot, one ranger” is part of our heritage.

It will take a lot more than one ranger to help victims get their lives back together. But we can do it. Chris Christi, the governor of New Jersey told national news networks this morning that the devastation in his state is “unthinkable.” Video and pictures of the storm’s aftermath in New Jersey, New York City and other areas hit hard by Hurricane Sandy, prove it.

Millions are without power. The death toll is rising. Thousands of towns and cities are flooded, including, in a historic first, the subways in New York. Expect the stream of pictures, video and network news reports to continue as what’s left of the storm travels across the Northeast and rivers rise and trees fall, knocking out more power to those states. As they do, governors there may ask Texas for help.

Our guardsmen will face danger. We’ve seen it with other ferocious hurricanes. Katrina is an example. The National Guard kept order in storm-ravaged New Orleans after Katrina, from the Lower Ninth Ward to upscale neighborhoods in the Garden District where residents relied on them for protection from looters.

Thousands of downed power lines pose another danger. They’ve been known to kill in a hurricane’s aftermath. So can rivers that are swollen with rain, rising out of their banks to become raging torrents of swift-moving water.

When we think of American troops in danger we think most often of those overseas. But the National Guard can be in jeopardy here at home as it meets the challenges in the eight states ravaged by this hurricane that are facing unprecedented damage and rising death tolls. But our guardsmen are ready to go.